


watch me cry ('cuz i love the way you lie)

by sukarettimay



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: F/M, Retelling, especially for kaneki ken, he did nothing wrong yet he is still suffering, i pray for u ken, let him live ishida!!, life sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-28 07:05:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7630087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sukarettimay/pseuds/sukarettimay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>i will break your bones and take you out for a date to a cafe just on the side of the road so that we can talk about centipedes over a cup or two of unsugared coffee while i pluck the flowers.</p><p>[it’s a broken world that kaneki ken wants to protect]</p>
            </blockquote>





	watch me cry ('cuz i love the way you lie)

**Author's Note:**

> let kaneki live peacefully!!!
> 
> also touka darling, u remind me of midna, and that would be a good thing if her goodbye wasn’t as heart wrenching as it had been.

It’s luck that he finds himself among them, that he finally does something right by asking them for help, but he isn’t a lucky person so maybe it’s fate that brings him here. He wonders if life feels bad, so it gifts him with such an oasis.

It’s a peculiar paradise within this strange group of ghouls, ones who feast upon the corpses of the ones who couldn’t wait for death, ones who brew coffee for humans and ghouls alike, ones who just want a place to belong. It’s an odd band of brethren: a hot-blooded rabbit, a gentle daughter, a serpent for an upperclassman, and even an eccentric gourmet, and they take him in, the lost wandering soul stuck in between the black and white. They are not monsters.

Their coffee is good. Bitter, but good, because it’s the only thing that tastes the way it should, and he relishes in the lingering aftertaste it leaves on his tongue. They let him read the books that lined the shelves during his breaks. They’re good to him and he is happy.

He grows to love them.

It is a mistake.

He should've known that it would happen sooner or later. It always does. He can't do anything when the rabbit is chucked towards the wall, slumping over, and he wishes that he could've excelled at athletics for once.

So he is ripped from his friends, his saviors, and he wonders if it’s better than having his friends be ripped from him instead.

_“It’s better to be hurt, than to hurt others.”_

The floor is cold under his bare feet, red and black, and there is a metal bucket next to him. A big man- Jason- looms above him, and suddenly, he feels like a small rabbit under the stare of a wolf. The chair is a bit uncomfortable, and the rope digs into his skin like the teeth of a ghoul into the flesh of a human and he cries for the safety of his friends as his limbs are ripped off with pliers and regrow again.

_(He wants to protect, but to protect he needs the strength he doesn’t have.)_

* * *

He wants to protect, so he searches for the power. He wants power ( _so that no one will leave him behind._ )

Restaurants are disgusting, and there is the blood of unsuspecting humans splattered across the ground, but it is a gourmet, meant for taste buds of the highest caliber. He eats the ghouls instead, but they taste like rotting fish that had been soaked in pickle juice and slathered with unripe bananas. He eats anyways.

He visits the 20th ward sometimes. The daughter asks why he doesn’t meet with the rabbit. ( _He wants to._ ) He finds the rabbit’s friend instead- that human girl striving to be a chef- and asks her to give her the keychain of a rabbit he found. It reminded him of her.

He leaves again to eat.

_(Coward.)_

He makes a plan to visit one day, but he ( _chickens out_ ) leaves before her school is let out, and she catches him on the bridge anyways. Rabbits are quick on their feet.

He tries to explain, she doesn’t understand so she fights. She punches and kicks, but he's better now, _stronger,_  and he dodges every time but she screams, “ _Trash like you should stay out of Anteiku!_ ” and he shouldn’t believe it because she is just angry, _so angry_. But he hesitates and when she catches him in the jaw, she straddles his torso and punches his face until the bruises are black. He doesn’t protest.

He is dangerous, but she doesn’t understand, so he’ll leave her alone until she does.

“Rabbits die from loneliness.”

He remembers that he says, “ _See you, Touka-chan_ ,” like he actually would, but his promises as empty as the voice who says them, and he crosses the bridge without another word.

She believes him anyways.

_(The distance between the lonely rabbit and the wayward centipede grows.)_

* * *

He wants answers so he wanders. He searches to satisfy his parched curiosity. His own abilities aren’t as grand as he forces himself to believe.

He fails.

He wants to protect so he eats, and he eats to become stronger, to bury his weakness, to finally become the guardian he craves to be. He’s desperate to prove ( _to himself?_ ) that he is capable saving ( _that not all of his loved ones are destined to perish_ ) so he continues to eat, to thrive, to grow.

Centipedes crawl in his ears, and he laughs because they are eating him alive and he just wants for it to stop, for everything to stop, for a better life than he’s had. So he laughs and he laughs, and everything is blurry, but it’s okay, as long as he is strong.

_(He eats, and he eats, and eats, and eats, until he hasn’t eaten enough, but he has had enough.)_

* * *

 

He wants what he wants (to protect, to become strong, to survive, to just end it all), but if one would ask he realizes that he doesn’t know what he wants anymore.

_(He drowns in the pool of red, surrounded by white flowers, and everything escapes his mind, but it’s okay, as long as his friends are safe.)_

* * *

 

A coffee shop _(he wonders what does :re mean?)_ is hidden away on the side of the road and he wonders if it’s wrong to treat himself after a hard fought battle.

His fight was against a serpent of a ghoul, who smiled such a bittersweet smile at him like they were old friends reuniting.

But maybe his eyes are playing tricks on him, those pranksters. He is the hunter, and they are the hunted, because that is what his two years of memories tell him, want him to believe, _because that is all he can believe._

He sits at the table with his squad, ordering coffee ( _black with no sugar, because that is all he can drink_ ) and the waitress is awfully beautiful and he’s had someone like her in his life before.

Someone screams, but only he can hear the pleas of a little boy who wants to see her again.

She’s smiling, a stunning smile, but it breaks his heart in a confusing way, breaks it in half rather than the small tickle of pity and empathy in his chest that he should have felt, like he caused her sadness, like he is the one at fault.

The coffee smells nostalgic, and it tickles the back of his head, like he's smelled such a rich bitterness before.

Someone screams that they don’t want to disappear, but it is ignored.

_(She hands him a handkerchief and he notices that the latte art is shaped like a rabbit.)_

* * *

 

He’s drowning in blood ( _his own?_ ), fighting with the gourmet on top of the rooftop when he finally remembers.

He’s calmer than he thought he would be, as calm as he can be when he remembers broken promises and centipedes, but really he’s just so tired, so damn tired.

He throws the gourmet over the side, letting him plummet to his death. He looks into the eyes of death, and becomes the crow within the flock of doves because he remembers who he is, even if he never wanted to.

The daughter slaps him when he releases her from Cochlea. He says nothing and leaves again.

Noises, they are loud. He finds rabbits and a raven stand before death, so he stands in between. The God of Death is before him, but he isn't intimidated. He stares on ahead, and he stands in front of the memory of his loved ones so that he can protect, _he has to protect._

The rabbit says, “ _I’ll see you later, okay?_ ” like she truly believes it, but her words are pleading, coated in thick desperation and broken hope. He thinks she’s too cruel, when she says it right over his deathbed.

He meets death halfway, and his eye, inky black with a blood red pupil, stares him down head on.

Everything is blurry, with sunshine encouraging him, and he hovers over the body that should’ve been his, unknowing if he should feel something other than the emptiness that pooled in the pit of his stomach.

He is the crown king.

_(His hands are stained with blood that isn’t his, but he wishes that it was.)_

* * *

 

_(Life waits for no one, and the martyr puts on another mask, like all the others.)_

**Author's Note:**

> i got rihanna's "love the way you lie" stuck in my head.
> 
> also listen i totally messed up the bridge scene but like.... sorry...


End file.
